


Oh Love Don't Let Me Go

by heliotropelied



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, artist!zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 07:23:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliotropelied/pseuds/heliotropelied
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Zayn thinks that he gets it. Because when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the sun on his skin and the warm breeze blowing past him while they drive down American roads in Louis’s hand-me-down Jeep with the top off. In his mind, he’s warm and sweat-sticky, singing at the top of his lungs.</p><p>It doesn’t even matter that it’s twenty below freezing and they’re probably getting frostbite.</p><p>Louis finds his hand and they twine their fingers together. Zayn squeezes and Louis squeezes back. He thinks maybe he can feel the cold grey-blues of the winter fading into bright turquoise like the water on sunny ocean beaches through the warmth of Louis’s fingertips.</p><p>Zayn gets it – maybe it’s not where you are, but where you’re going.</p><p>Canadian high school AU in which Zayn is an art kid and Louis is a drama kid and there is unnecessary sadness. But that’s OK because Zayn paints beautiful pictures and Louis comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh Love Don't Let Me Go

**Author's Note:**

> So, I did a thing. The thing is a Canadian high school AU based on my high school? Um. It's sort of autobiographical? And has some references to my hometown. That aren't very hard if you know how to google. I don't know man, it's personal. 
> 
> This was supposed to be a fic about Zayn painting Louis and instead I got 7k words of sad Zayn. Woops.

**Oh Love Don’t Let Me Go**

 

It’s like this;

 

Zayn meets Louis a week before he’s set to start high school. Louis is a year ahead of him and Liam and Niall. Zayn knew of Louis back in middle school too, but in middle school it’s hard to make friends with the older kids. In high school, Louis who’s a sophomore, gives Zayn, a freshman, a tour of the school. Well, not only Zayn, Liam and Niall and a bunch of other kids are there too, but the point is that Louis is enthusiastic and leads them around the building showing the best places to eat lunch and which areas to avoid when and he even zeroes in on the fact that Zayn is a bit quiet and doesn’t like people very much so he pulls him aside and mentions that the photography teacher doesn’t mind having kids hang around in her studio.

 

Zayn’s high school is specialized towards the arts – divided up into four departments, visual, dance, drama, and music. The thing is, the school is an hour’s drive away from his house and Zayn would have totally gone to his local which is a ten minute walk away, if it hadn’t been for the fact that some kid totally got stabbed in a bathroom stall there. But he’s got a school bus that picks him up at a stop two minutes from his house at seven in the morning and on the first day Zayn sits in a middle seat not wanting to seem like a delinquent in the back or a keener in the front. He falls asleep ten minutes into the ride and stays that way until they’re fifteen minutes from the school and someone slips into the empty space beside him.

 

“Hey,” the boy says, “Sorry this was the only seat left, I hope you don’t mind.” He smiles blindingly at Zayn and he’s far too awake for this early in the morning.

 

Zayn squints at the boy, belatedly realizing that this is Louis from orientation. “Yeah, sure, no problem,” he stutters along.

 

“Cool,” Louis grins.

 

They’re silent for a bit, and Zayn’s contemplating sleeping for another five minutes before the bus reaches the school when Louis says, “So listen; don’t worry too much about your first day of classes, alright? I know that they tell you all this scary stuff about high school, but it’s really not that big of a deal. And also, people aren’t nearly as shitty as they make it out to be – in my experience, middle school was a lot worse. Everyone here is here to do something they love and no one’s going to get on your case about whatever it is that you do because they all know how that goes. So yeah, don’t like, freak out or anything. Sorry, you didn’t even ask for my advice – it’s only that I wish someone had told me before I started.”

 

“Um, thanks, I guess. But I’m not really that worried anyway,” Zayn smiles, “I’ve actually got my two best friends here with me and I have classes with them, so it’s not too bad.”

 

“That’s great! I’m glad that you do. When I came here, I was the only one from my area that I knew of so I had to make friends from scratch. It’s not too bad once you fall in with a crowd but –”

 

“It’s hard to make that first friend,” Zayn finishes for him. He knows what that’s like. When he says that two of his friends are going to school with him, what Zayn actually means is that he’s got his only two friends going to school with him. Middle school was hard for Zayn because he was the only Pakistani kid in a predominantly white neighbourhood and, well, people hate what they don’t understand.

 

Louis smiles at him and squeezes Zayn’s shoulder just as the bus pulls up to the front of the school. “Hey, when do you have lunch?”

 

Zayn pauses to think, “Um, third, I think…yeah, third with Liam.”

 

“Oh good!” Louis exclaims walking out of the bus with Zayn, “I’ve got third lunch too. I’m usually in the photography room with some of my friends if you and Liam need a place to eat. Do you remember where it is?”

 

Zayn does, so he nods, “Yeah, sure I do. I’ll talk to Liam about it – your friends won’t mind?”

 

Louis shakes his head, “Nah, they’re cool.”

 

They enter the school and Louis shows Zayn where his first class of the day, English with Niall and Liam, is and then wishes him good luck before running off to pounce on a pretty girl with wavy brown hair.

 

As promised, his first two classes of the day aren’t bad at all. His teachers are nice enough and they’re reading To Kill a Mockingbird in English which Zayn’s already read so he’s not too worried at all. By the time lunch rolls around, Zayn feels like he’s got a pretty good handle on things.

 

“So, should we go to the cafeteria then?” Liam asks.

 

Zayn shakes his head, “No, Louis invited us to have lunch with him and his friends.” He grabs Liam’s hand and drags him down the stairs to the first floor of the school (which is technically also the basement but only because they’re school built really oddly and half of the first floor is built underground, into a hill, but whatever, it’s the first floor).

 

The photography room is hidden in a far corner between the gym corridor and the music hallway. It’s an inconspicuous door with a Room 100 sign on the top right corner and a black sign that says PHOTOGRAPHY on it in white stuck to the window embedded in the door.

 

“Are you sure we’re allowed in here, Zayn?” Liam asks timidly, “Aren’t only the juniors and seniors allowed to take this course?”

 

Zayn shrugs, “Louis said the teacher doesn’t mind, and that he would be here. Plus, it beats having to eat in an overcrowded cafeteria.”

 

Nevertheless, he hesitantly opens the door only to be greeted by a loud and extremely hyper Louis, “Zayn! And Liam! Hello, welcome, come in!”

 

So the photography room is actually _huge_ and not at all what Zayn was expecting. There’s a corner of the room close to the door where five separate photography sets have been set up and two teachers’ desks a little further near a red door that looks like it leads to a small office. And there’re cabinets lining the walls, and a set of stairs that lead up to a loft and in the middle of the room, desks for students to sit at.

 

Louis drags the two of them to a desk at the back of the room where Zayn sees four other people sitting. One of them has a familiar head of bleached blond hair, the other a boy Zayn recognizes from his English class, then there’s the girl that was attacked by Louis this morning, another girl that Zayn doesn’t recognize but looks a hell of a lot like the boy from English.

 

“Niall? What are you doing here? Didn’t you have fourth lunch?” Liam asks as they approach the table.

 

Niall shrugs, “They put me the wrong level math so I had to get it switched – now I have math second with Harry over here,” he points to the boy from English class, “and lunch third period instead of math.”

 

Harry waves, “Hey, man.”

 

“At least most of you know each other then,” Louis says. “By the way, Gemma, El, this is Zayn and Liam. Liam, Zayn, this is Gemma and Eleanor.”

 

Gemma, the girl that looks like Harry, smiles, “Hello,” she greets.

 

Eleanor, who’s a bit distracted by the book she’s been looking at, spares them a glance and smile before ducking back to the book.

 

“Oh for god’s sake, El,” Louis groans, “It’s only the first day of school, you can’t possibly have any homework!”

 

Eleanor looks up to glare at Louis, “For your information, this is not homework. I’m just reading this for fun – it’s really very interesting.”

 

“Ugh, fine, whatever be boring, see what I care,” Louis laments. And then, “Don’t mind Eleanor, she’s hell bent on disproving the whole, dancers are dumb stereotype. Which – we all _know_ that she’s not stupid, I mean she’s top of the class for Christ’s sake, but alas, she won’t believe me.

 

“But let’s not dwell on how _boring_ my best friend is. Gem’s far more interesting anyway.”

 

Gemma, Zayn finds out, is a senior drama student and something of a photography prodigy. “She’s won first place in three national competitions – she’s basically Ms. M’s favourite student,” Louis says proudly. She’s also Harry’s sister which explains why they looks so much alike.

Harry is a music student specializing in vocals with Liam as it turns out. He’s also Louis’s best friend and next door neighbour. He’s charming and seems to get along with almost everyone and Zayn really does like him.

 

They sit and talk and Zayn’s never felt more like he belongs somewhere more than this moment. Louis and Gemma give him and Niall and Harry and Liam advice. Eleanor occasionally looks up from her book to pitch in – usually to call Louis out on his obscene lies. Zayn has fun which is a lot more than he expected to have and before he knows it, it’s time for fourth period and he’s headed off to art class.

 

Art is intimidating to say the least. In middle school, Zayn was the only one to actually care about art. The rest of his school was either really into band or really into sports. But Zayn’s sanctuary was in the art room with the paints and the pencils and his art teacher Mr. Bentley. Liam and Niall didn’t have as a hard time as him back then so when they would go outside to play soccer or whatever during lunch, Zayn would hang out in the art room to draw.

 

The thing is, even though Zayn loves drawing and painting, and he’s actually kind of good at it, he has no experience outside of school with art. All these other kids in his class have been taking art classes since they could hold a pencil and they’re so much _better_ than him. But Zayn is determined to make this thing work because – well, what other options does he have?

 

Besides, Zayn thinks. Maybe he brings something new. Maybe he’s here because while they see the white of an eggshell, Zayn sees the colours reflected on it. Where they see the mousy brown of Louis’s hair, Zayn sees the hundreds of other colours Louis would prefer it to be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It’s also like this;

 

The summer rolls around before Zayn knows it and he’s making plans with Louis and Harry. They’ve come to be really close along with Niall and Liam over the course of the year. Having made it through finals and cruel science teachers, they’re all just ready for a lazy summer of pool parties and goofing off at the mall.

 

Zayn has more friends now than he had in his entire life. He’s met Stan, Louis’s childhood friend who doesn’t go to school with them, and of course there’s Gemma who’s graduating, and Eleanor who always has her nose in a book. There’s also Perrie, Jade, Jesy, and Leigh-Anne who are all vocal students and come as a package deal.

 

Amongst it all, Zayn has somehow had the time to develop a crush on Louis. Which is probably the worst thing that could happen to Zayn – like ever.

 

So the thing is that Louis is loud and brash and very outgoing which are all things that Zayn is not. Except that he is, but only with his friends. And despite being all of these things, Louis doesn’t push Zayn to be sociable ever. But he also always, always manages to drag Zayn into all his stupid plans – not that Zayn minds, because he doesn’t. In fact, Zayn’s been known to encourage Louis most times. And Zayn is so fucking _gone_ for Louis that it’s scary.

 

Zayn tries not to dwell on it too much though, because as much he thinks Louis is the most gorgeous person he’s ever met, Louis is also one of his best friends now so he’d much rather not screw that up.

 

There’s a day in the summer, when it’s sweltering hot outside but Liam still insists on using Harry’s pool and having a picnic. It’s disgusting how hot it is outside considering that it’s July in southern Ontario and just two days ago there was a fucking _monsoon._

 

They’ve been out for almost two hours now and Zayn and Louis have officially given up on doing anything at all. Harry, Niall, and Liam are still splashing around in the pool and Zayn wonders just how they even manage.

 

Louis’s spread out a blanket on the grass under the shade for them to lie on. Zayn’s hand is weaving through Louis’s hair and Louis’s head is rested on his stomach.

 

“That one looks like a bird riding on a turtle’s back,” Louis says pointing to a cloud. It doesn’t; it looks like a cloud.

 

“You’ve already said that one, Lou. If you’re going to pretend that you see things in the clouds, at least change up the pictures every now and then.”

 

“You ruin all my fun,” Louis pouts, turning on his side to nuzzle his nose into Zayn’s stomach.

 

“That’s me, official fun-ruiner.” Except, not at all because the only people who ever get in Louis’s way are Liam and sometimes Eleanor and no one else especially, and specifically not Zayn. Because Zayn is the one that indulges Louis the most. People sometimes make the mistake of thinking it’s Harry or Niall, but the two of them have a sort of idol worship for Louis. Not Zayn – no, Zayn and Louis have been on equal playing fields for a long time now. They’re partners of a sort.

 

And that’s how they grow.

 

Louis comes up with increasingly more daring plans, and Zayn, well Zayn improves them.

 

He starts his sophomore year and in November, when it’s soggy and freezing outside, Louis comes up to him and says, “It’s fucking boring in this town. I’m taking you and the boys, we’re getting in the car and we’re finding the last ounce of life this place has left to offer.”

 

So Zayn borrows a camera from the photography department, Louis borrows Eleanor’s car, and they go on a short road trip to the shore of the Port Credit River. Zayn’s been here a thousand times before – with the boys in the summer, with his family a couple times in the spring for picnics. But it’s a whole different beast in the middle of November.

 

Beaches in Canada are gross – OK, no, they’re not, Zayn’s sure the ones in BC and on the east coast are perfectly nice, but the ones where he lives, the ones by lakes and rivers are the worst ever. The water is always a mucky brown or grey or brown-grey and it’s always fucking cold. They’re even worse in the winter. The sand is wet from the freezing rain earlier in the morning and the trees are bare on account of it being fall.

 

“Louis,” Harry whines, “Come on, it’s cold and gross and I’d much rather be in history class!” Harry is the only person in the world that Zayn knows who actually enjoys tenth grade history. He makes a pouty face and Zayn snaps a picture because it’s Harry and it’s ridiculous and he’s just a little bit in love with all of his friends.

 

“No, I’ve got something to show you,” Louis says.

 

He walks back to where they’ve parked El’s car and pops the trunk open to retrieve blankets and what looks like two thermoses. He unfolds the blanket, revealing a portable iPod dock from within them, and lays them out gesturing the boys to sit down. The smell of hot chocolate wafts towards Zayn from the thermos as Louis passes them around.

 

Once they’ve warmed up a bit, Louis insists that they lay down. He plugs in his iPod and they listen,

 

_We’ve been on the run, driving in the sun, looking out for number one/ California here we come/ right back where we started from_

 

And Zayn thinks that he gets it. Because when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the sun on his skin and the warm breeze blowing past him while they drive down American roads in Louis’s hand-me-down Jeep with the top off. In his mind, he’s warm and sweat-sticky, singing at the top of his lungs.

 

It doesn’t even matter that it’s twenty below freezing and they’re probably getting frostbite.

 

Louis finds his hand and they twine their fingers together. Zayn squeezes and Louis squeezes back. He thinks maybe he can feel the cold grey-blues of the winter fading into bright turquoise like the water on sunny ocean beaches through the warmth of Louis’s fingertips.

 

Zayn gets it – maybe it’s not where you are, but where you’re going.

 

Then it’s summer again and August is blistering. They’re going through a drought which is fucking insane – they live less than half an hour away from one of the largest lakes in the world. Ninth grade geography taught Zayn that proximity to water has nothing to with it, but he still can’t help but wonder how the hell this became his life.

 

Louis wants to turn on the sprinklers and bring out the slip and slide his sisters have hidden away in the garage, but his mom refuses. So they’re sitting on Louis’s front lawn drinking Iced Capps from Timmy’s instead.

 

“This is the worst,” he whines into Zayn’s shoulder. Which, yeah, not actually helping.

 

“You realize that you’re just making it worse by insisting on lying on top of me, yeah?” They really don’t need to be sharing body heat right now.

 

“We live in fucking Canada, Zayn,” Louis says, lifting himself off Zayn, “It should never be hotter than twenty degrees.”

 

Zayn snorts, “Didn’t you use to live in Calgary? That’s much worse than here, man.”

 

Louis groans, “No, don’t remind me. I feel like I’m boiling from the inside out just thinking about it.”

 

He lies down on the dried out, yellowing grass and starts to pull blades to keep himself occupied. “God, why can’t we live in Nunavut, Zayn?”

 

“Because you have an aversion to wearing jackets and would die of hypothermia by the second day of winter, dumbass.” And, you know – no one _actually willing wants to live in Nunavut_.

 

“There are no seasons in Canada,” Louis says, “Only slightly cold, fucking freezing, slightly less cold, and blood boiling hot.” Zayn nods, he feels that.

 

Louis tugs on Zayn’s arm until he’s also lying down – head to head, legs in opposite directions. The dry grass makes Zayn’s skin itch, but the heat of the sun makes him drowsy so he closes his eyes and starts to drift off.

 

He’s mostly asleep when Louis says, “One more year, one more year and then I’m out of here. London, here I come.” Zayn uses the excuse of sleep to pretend he never heard it, and even if he did, it was probably just his imagination anyway. Louis can’t possibly want to go all the way across the Atlantic for university. Louis can’t possibly want to leave Zayn that far behind him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And then it’s like this;

 

Zayn is starting eleventh grade and Louis is starting twelfth. Mostly, it’s like any other year, except for how Louis’s graduating this year and Zayn, Liam, Niall, and Harry aren’t.

 

Zayn takes photography class for the first time and falls in love with the feel of a film camera in his hands, the clicks of the aperture, and the lingering smell of developing chemicals in all of his clothes. He spends most of free time during school in the darkroom squinting at scratches in his film and trying to focus the ancient enlargers donated by some alumni or another. He stays after school to help with the photography club and goes home most days with developer staining his jeans and flecks of paint under his nails.

 

Niall and Liam find him in the darkroom during lunch one day.

 

“We haven’t seen you in a while,” Liam says.

 

Zayn shrugs, “Been busy, sorry.”

 

“Busy, or avoiding Louis?” Niall asks. And Niall’s always been more perceptive than any of them ever give him credit for.

 

Maybe Zayn has been avoiding Louis. But it’s better than having to listen to Louis go on about acting school in London. It’s better than watching Louis’s frequent panic fueled cleaning purges as he recites his audition monologues over, and over, and over.

 

The thing is that Louis has his heart set on London. And London is an ocean away. And Zayn can’t help but feel like he’s being left behind. It’s irrational and selfish, but he’d much rather wean himself off Louis now then have to do it during the summer when he’ll no doubt find himself clinging to the last hopes that maybe Louis will change his mind. Maybe he’ll decide to go to school somewhere closer like Montreal which is only ten hours in a car.

 

Because, here’s the other thing Zayn hasn’t let himself believe yet, he’s in love with Louis. Like irreversibly, irrevocably, irresponsibly in love with Louis. And it’s terrifying to say the least. Zayn is familiar with being in love with his friends – thinks that he could marry any of them and be happy for the rest of his life because they’re all a little in love with him too. Sometimes he tries to explain this to his mom, or his sisters, but to them it’s a lot more complicated than it is to Zayn.

 

To Zayn, it’s simple. It’s fact like oxygen is what we breathe in and carbon dioxide is what we breathe out.

 

But loving Louis isn’t simple at all. Loving Louis is like setting his insides on fire; it’s like wanting to go base jumping and wanting to curl up in bed and never come out all at once. Loving Louis is an overwhelming and raw feeling that Zayn can’t touch for fear of shattering into a million tiny pieces.

 

But he’s not ready to admit that yet so –

 

“No, I’ve really just been busy, Ni. My course load’s pretty heave this semester,” it’s not a total lie, at least. Zayn has been fast tracking math since last year, so he’s got twelfth grade functions and eleventh grade chemistry on his plate along with photography and his mandatory art class. He’s been busy, but not nearly as much as he’s making it seem.

 

Niall walks over to the chemical baths where Zayn has a print sitting in the water. He peers in, “Certainly not too busy to be creeping shots of Louis practicing in the auditorium,” he says.

 

Zayn’s just glad for the darkness of the room that hides his blush. So what if he’s been sneaking in behind the stage to watch Louis practice for his auditions. It’s just that Louis looks really beautiful when he’s on stage. His entire body shifts according the character he plays and watching Louis move fluidly around the stage like it was shaped for him, and not he for it, is like magic.

 

“It’s for the photo competition,” Zayn shrugs.

 

“The one that doesn’t even start until April?” Liam asks.

 

Maybe.

 

Whatever, Zayn doesn’t have to deal with this right now.

 

Liam sighs, “Look, Zayn, we miss you, OK? If this whole thing with Louis applying for university is bothering you, we can ask him to tone it down a bit. But for the record? You’re being a really shit friend right now. Lou needs you to be supportive of him. His parents are already down his back about going to Queen’s for business school. He doesn’t need another person shitting on his dreams, alright?”

 

Liam and Niall leave.

 

And things are tense between them for a long time. Zayn loves his friends, but he’s overly cautious about his heart and is afraid of breaking it himself. So he supports Louis from afar.

 

There’s a travel mug full of hot chai in the cup holder of Louis’s car in February when he has to drive to Toronto for the first of his local auditions; a jalapeno bagel with butter and a small French-vanilla from Timmy’s on his kitchen table the morning he leaves for Quebec to visit the campus for the National Theatre School. And, on the day he’s set to mail his audition taper for his London schools, there is a drawing of Louis holding Yorick’s skull, reciting Hamlet’s graveyard soliloquy and the lucky Loony Zayn swears won the Canadian men’s hockey team gold in the 2010 Olympics.

 

In May, he gets a text:

 

_I got London._

 

Zayn buys Louis a _London A-Z_ and stuffs it in his locker, a note written on the inside: _Sorry I’ve been so shit. I always believed you could do it_.

 

In July, he doesn’t get to see Louis off at the airport. Partially because his heart can’t handle it, and partially because he’s made himself so sad that it’s actually taken a toll on his body.

 

But sometime before that, his photo of Louis wins that competition. It’s a black and white print; Louis is sitting on the edge of the stage, fingers running through his hair and head tipped slightly down. He’s gorgeous on his own, but Zayn thinks what makes the photo so perfect is how much detail there is in his eyes, the tears brimming and threatening to spill, but not quite getting there. He had been so _engrossed_ in his performance that he hadn’t even noticed Zayn taking the picture.

 

Zayn prints an extra copy, painstakingly making sure that he leaves no watermarks or scratches, and frames it, writing _I love everything you will ever choose to be. Take them by storm, hurricane Louis,_ on the back. He has his mom wrap it in brown craft paper and asks Louis’s to sneak it into his suitcase.

 

The picture is in black and white, but Louis makes it seem like it’s in Technicolor.

 

He sleeps through Louis’s entire eight hour flight from Pearson International to Heathrow.

 

It’s September before he talks to Niall, Liam, or Harry again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It becomes this;

 

Zayn’s senior year passes through a chaotic storm of meaningless classes and an ever fluctuating attitude of _I couldn’t care less at this point_ and _my entire future depends on this one assignment_. They’re equally as apathetic as they are high strung.

 

There’s a week in December when they’re all preparing for exams in January and applying to university where they all breakdown. It’s Harry first, in his and Zayn’s English class. They’re reading from _King Lear_ when Harry drops his book and starts hyperventilating. He walks right out of class before the teacher can even say anything and Zayn chases after him. Harry has a good cry on him and then they text Liam and Niall to skip third period so that they can take an extra-long lunch.

 

Then it’s Liam in the middle of his music performance class when he realizes he forgot to finish an assignment for Travel and Tourism. And then Niall during lunch when they find themselves talking about applying for scholarships and whether or not Harry is seriously considering going to school in British Columbia. Niall remembers some loan form or another he didn’t fill out and they have to drive him home early.

 

Zayn’s comes in January when he realizes that the oil painting that he hasn’t started was due a week ago. He starts breathing hard and no amount of comforting from his friends in his art class seems to help. They end up having to call Liam in and asking him to take Zayn to the office.

 

Niall, Liam, and Harry all got their acceptances to university early in January because they’ve all applied to programs which don’t require supplementary applications. They’re all staying relatively local, Harry at Queen’s for commerce, Liam up in Western for their music program, and Niall, in a surprising turn of event, at University of Toronto for pre-law.

 

Zayn, however, has portfolios to prepare for art school. He’s applied locally, but he has his eyes set on New York. And he won’t have any answers until April at the earliest.

 

The thing is, through all this, he hasn’t had the time to think of Louis.

 

Well. No. That’s a blatant lie. He thinks of Louis all the time. He thinks of Louis before he falls asleep and when he wakes up in the morning and when he’s hiding in the darkroom developing old negatives. He thinks of Louis especially when he opens his email and finds photos of London waiting for him from Louis.

 

But he hasn’t had time to dwell on it. Louis will always be there. Zayn has accepted that. It doesn’t mean that he has to focus on the heartbreak all the time.

 

And he’s been doing really great on the front.

 

Until he starts on his portfolio pieces for New York and at the very bottom of the list, finds: _a portrait done in acrylic paint of the person you love the most_.

 

Fine, Zayn decides, he’ll paint his mother. But his art teacher says that’s too predictable and won’t win him any points with the adjudicators. So he paints Harry and Liam and Niall, hoping they won’t penalize him for painting three people instead of one.

 

Except.

 

Except once he’s finished, he absolutely hates it. He hates the way Niall’s eyes are the wrong hue of blue and the way Harry’s curls are just a bit off and how Liam’s skin is a shade too grey. He hates all of it despite how much everyone keeps telling him they love it.

 

And then with a day to go, Zayn decides maybe he’ll just plug in his iPod and slash paint around on a canvas until it resembles something human. He locks himself away in the makeshift studio his parents built for him in the basement.

 

 _Oh love don't let me go/ Won't you take me where the streetlights glow_ , the song says, and Zayn swipes burnt orange and mahogany red across his canvas. There’s teal and aqua and cobalt blue. And then there’s yellow – every yellow he can imagine, bright like the sun, with a hint of spice like mustard, soft like duck down. He closes his eyes and sees a face – a burning smile and glittering eyes that dance around his mind all the time.

 

It’s eight in the morning when his mom comes down to tell him to get ready for school and Zayn hasn’t slept all night.

 

He’d finished an hour ago but the result of his work took him by surprise. Which is why Zayn’s mother finds him sitting cross-legged in front of his painting, staring at it wide eyed and terrified.

 

It’s – well, it’s _Louis_. It’s Louis in every colour Zayn has ever seen him in. The burning orange fire he sees in Louis’s passion, the bright, royal blue in his energy, the dark red of his anger, the moss green of his confidence, the soft yellow of his loyalty, the deep purple of his love. It’s Louis in colours that shouldn’t work – colours that should clash and look messy and _primary_ – but somehow create a harmony. The orange working somehow in tandem with its opposite, blue and the red somehow not overpowering the green at all. It’s a painting of every colour combination that Zayn hates. Yet.

 

Yet, he finds himself loving this; this one painting, of this one person that he loves so much. And maybe it’s because he’s never actually thought to combine colours this way. But probably, it’s because the colours work in the same way that Louis does. They exist in a constant state of impossibility – qualities which don’t work together anywhere else, but in this one place, they are beautiful.

 

Zayn gets his acceptance to New York.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And then finally, finally it’s like this;

 

His parents help him find a small studio near his school that their friends sublet to him for cheap. He’s got enough scholarships to tide him through tuition, so his college fund goes to his living expenses. The studio is small, by the standards of what he’s used to in his suburban house, but large compared to what his friends at university are living in. The only room in the studio is the bathroom, and everything else is in open space. Which is fine with Zayn because doors are a hassle anyway. He likes it well enough, but his favourite part, the part all his art friends are all jealous of, is the loft.

 

The loft has an entire wall made of glass which lets in the natural light. The view isn’t the greatest, just some other New York street, but Zayn doesn’t care because the space is big enough for him to set up a studio.

 

It’s peaceful working here, the white noise of the traffic on the street below mixing in with Zayn’s breathing and the beating pulse of the music pouring through the speakers. He’s standing in front of a large canvas working on his latest assignment wearing nothing but the too-large button up shirt he uses as a smock and his underwear with a brush in his mouth and one in his hand.

 

It’s another portrait of Louis. Because that’s what his life has become – a series of portraits of Louis, some ambiguous enough to be something other than Louis and others so exact to Louis’s features that he’s bordering on hyper-realism.

 

It’s not working out for him this time, though. The blue of Louis’s eyes won’t come out right – like he’s forgetting what they look like. It’s distressing and makes Zayn want to throw his canvas out the window.

 

He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths, calming himself like Liam taught him to do over the summer when he would get worked up over leaving his little Canadian suburb for the hustle and bustle of New York.

 

He’s lost in his own thoughts, which is why he startles when someone wraps their arms around him and whispers, “Paint me like one of your French girls, Jack.” Zayn jumps about twenty feet in the air and out of the arms around him, his brush clattering on the floor and paint flying everywhere.

 

He whips around to face the intruder and standing before him is _Louis_. Zayn feels like he’s seeing a ghost.

 

“Hi,” Louis whispers, lifting his hand to give Zayn a meek wave. He looks different. Not that Zayn didn’t know this, because he still gets photos from Louis every now and then in his email, and he’s not dead to the world – he has a Facebook. So he does know that Louis looks different from when he left Toronto, but seeing it in person – well, Zayn feels like the breath has been knock out of him.

 

His hair looks like a tornado swept through it, but did so artistically and carefully, and there’s stubble on his face. His eyes are tired, but happy, and his body has filled out quite a bit from two years ago. He still looks beautiful.

 

“Hi,” Zayn whispers back, “How did you – um, how did you get in?”

 

Louis shrugs, “The door was unlocked and you had your music up too loud to hear me.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I could – I could um, leave if you want me to. It’s just that, I’d kind of hoped that you’d want to see me,” Louis stutters. He looks small – not in the way Zayn’s used to, when his body is small but Louis himself is larger than life, but in a way that feels like Louis is trying make himself smaller. Trying to make his insecurities less visible.

 

“No! No, stay. I want you to stay,” Zayn says. He wrings his hands and stares at Louis still not quite believing that he’s there. It seems more possible that one of his paintings has come to life. “I thought you’d be in London right now, that’s all.”

 

“I dropped your picture frame,” Louis replies apropos of nothing.

 

“What?”

 

“The photo, that you gave me before I left…I was cleaning my room and I accidentally knocked it off the wall and the frame broke. When I went to pick up the pieces, I saw what you wrote on the back.”

 

And oh.

 

_I love everything you will ever choose to be. Take them by storm, Hurricane Louis._

 

“It’s just – why didn’t you ask me, Zayn?”

 

“Ask you what?”

 

Louis sighs, exasperated, “Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”

 

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Zayn could have asked Louis and he knows, has always known, that if he had, Louis would have considered staying. Maybe going to Montreal or even New York instead. But Zayn couldn’t have done that – not as Louis’s friend, and especially not as someone who loves Louis the way he does. Because London was Louis’s dream and if Zayn had gotten in the way of that, well. It would be a lot harder in the long run.

 

“You wouldn’t have stayed,” he says instead.

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“You didn’t want to stay, Lou. You hated the thought of staying, and I hated the thought of keeping you tied to something you didn’t want.”

 

There’s a long silence. Zayn takes the moment to collect himself, prepare himself to lose Louis all over again but then –

 

“I wanted you,” Louis whispers.

 

“What?”

 

“I wanted you,” he says, this time louder. “I wanted you and I wanted you to ask me to stay. And maybe I wouldn’t have, Zayn, maybe I would have gone to London anyway. But I would have found a way to keep you as well. I would have found string long enough to keep me tied to you even with an ocean between us.”

 

And Zayn can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and it’s all too much and the only logical solution to this seems to be to kiss Louis.

 

It’s like all the parts of him are finally slotting into place when their lips touch. Louis’s kiss is electric blue and the explosions at the ends of Zayn’s nerves are bright white like the flash of a camera.

 

Louis winds his fingers through Zayn’s hair, whining into the kiss as Zayn hoists him up and wraps his legs around Zayn’s waist. Zayn nips at Louis’s neck, sucking a bite there, marking it to prove that Louis is actually here and not just a product of Zayn’s vivid imagination. They pull apart for air, but only for a couple of seconds before coming back into a kiss which is deeper than the first. Louis’s tongue swipes at Zayn’s bottom lip and Zayn grants him access.

 

He walks them down the stairs of the loft. His lips are still chasing Louis’s until he finds his bed by the corner window and unceremoniously drops Louis, climbing up after him. Zayn hovers on top of Louis, weight resting on his elbows and _looks_. There’re flecks of blue and red on Louis’s cheekbones where the still wet paint on Zayn’s fingers has smudged on. Zayn leans down to bite his jaw as Louis wraps himself around Zayn once again.

 

Louis’s fingers trail under Zayn’s top, grazing his nipples before pulling them back out and unbuttoning the shirt.

 

“Is this OK?” Louis whispers into Zayn’s neck.

 

“Yeah, yes – god, yes.”

 

It’s a rush from there to get undressed. They tug at each other’s clothes, coming close on more than one occasion to ripping them off. But then Zayn has Louis lying naked underneath him and it’s better than anything he could ever picture in his head.

 

Louis splayed out like this, on Zayn’s bed, is soft and vulnerable and more _real_ than Zayn has ever known him to be. He can feel Louis’s want for him, can see the love and lust in his eyes. Every curve and sharp edge of his body is calling out for Zayn to paint. He thinks he would have Louis sit on his recliner, naked and reading his favourite book, and then Zayn would spend hours painting on every freckle and insignificant scar on his body. But first, Zayn thinks he’ll map it all out with his fingers and his tongue.

 

He stars at Louis’s collar bone, biting and licking alternatively until he can see a bruise blooming. And then he moves lower – his chest, his nipples, his hips, his thighs – Louis’s moans and shaky breath egging him on. He ghosts his lips over Louis’s cock, swelling and pretty pink.

 

“ _Zayn_ ,” Louis pleads.

 

And OK, Zayn thinks, alright. He wraps his lips around Louis, taking him as far has he can and sucks. Zayn’s not an expert, far from it, but what he lacks in experience, he tries to make up for in want. And he _really wants_. Somewhere off to the side he can feel Louis grab his hand and start to suck on two of his fingers. Zayn moans, lifting his eyes up to watch Louis.

 

Zayn knows that they must look obscene. He can’t bring himself to care much because Louis is guiding his wet fingers down past his balls and straight to his entrance. Zayn presses at the skin there, teasing but not doing much else, knowing that his fingers aren’t nearly wet enough to make fingering Louis the least bit comfortable. So he focuses on sucking Louis off, occasionally teasing with just a fingertip pressing into him.

 

“Zayn, god, please,” his words are breathy and kind of high pitched as he threads one hand through Zayn’s hair. He can feel Louis’s body wind up tight underneath him, ready to come apart with just the right touch, but Louis won’t let himself get there. “No, Zayn, come one, I want to – with you come on, come on,” he whines tugging at Zayn’s hair.

 

And Zayn gets the point. He pulls off Louis and climbs up so that he’s hovering on top again. Louis pulls him down for a searing kiss with one hand and wraps the other around Zayn’s cock. Zayn brings his own hand to wrap around Louis and drops his head to the juncture of Louis’s neck and shoulder to muffle his moans.

 

They work each other up, Zayn grinds down and Louis fucks into his hand. Louis comes with a stream of _love you, love you, love you_ pouring out and Zayn comes with Louis’s name dying on his lips.

 

They’re both sweaty and sticky with come on their hands and splattered on their stomachs, but for the first time in a long time, Zayn feels like he _belongs_ in his own body. He rolls off to lie down beside Louis, eyes closed and replaying every moment since Louis walked into his studio. Louis moves to tuck himself into Zayn’s side and rest his head on Zayn’s chest. And just like that, they’re back in high school sleeping over at each other’s houses, except this time with more nakedness and considerably more orgasms. Louis presses a kiss to Zayn’s sternum and Zayn watches him. He thinks he’ll paint Louis one day. Not pictures of Louis, but Louis himself. He thinks he’ll create art _on_ Louis, and not art _about_ Louis.

 

One day, Zayn will lay Louis out on the floor of his loft and take a paintbrush to him. He’ll paint all the colours he sees in Louis; red on his chest for the fire that burns there, dark purple on his neck for the bruises Zayn will leave there, blue on his hands for the energy that courses through them. One day, but that’s for later.

 

That’s for after.

 

For now, Louis says softly, “Ask me.”

 

And Zayn thinks that he can now – thinks that now, it’s not being selfish anymore, now it’s being who they are, it’s being what they want to be together.

 

So, “Stay,” he says.

 

And Louis replies, “OK.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

And then it’s like this;

 

Louis is tied to Zayn even if they have an ocean between them, and Zayn is tied to all of Louis’s ever changing, always contradicting colours.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Jarka](http://zaynsintopayne.tumblr.com) or editing and putting up with midnight texts about not being able to get to the point.
> 
> The two songs mentioned are, in order, California by Phantom Planet and Life in Technicolor II by Coldplay (the title also comes from there).
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](http://louistumlinsons.tumblr.com)


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